As she approaches her 90th birthday this year, the ever busy Estelle Parsons has been a near lifelong champion of the American theatre. Despite FIVE TONY Nominations for Acting, a Best Supporting Actress WIN for the Academy Award (Bonnie and Clyde), multiple OBIE awards (including the Lifetime Achievement Award), a place in the American Theatre Hall of Fame, and much more, somehow, she still does not have a TONY award. (While I doubt she loses any sleep over it, WE should if we let this travesty go uncorrected.)  After years of heading the Actors Studio in the 2000's, she's continued directing and teaching there, while still to this day, acting and directing on and off/off-off-Broadway and on-screen. She also continues to pass the flame to countless other theatre people. She helps so many people in the theatre and has even housed actors and foreign researchers, sits on the board to numerous theatres, and through her love for the Group Theatre has helped the ReGroup print and present many of the Group's plays for the first time in nearly a century.

Very few people, if any, still living have contributed more to our American Theatre, AND she is still going strong. She deserves the accolades not only for her own amazing body of work but for the time she has spent making sure that the best of our American Theatre is not lost. It would be a true shame is she didn't not receive this wonderful award to add to her collection.

Without Estelle, now and more importantly, 100 years from now, our American theatre would not be nearly as rich.